a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to polyolefin resin compositions comprising a polymer containing an inorganic filler and an alkenylsilane and a polyolefin, and to applications thereof.
b) Description of the Related Art
Polyolefins are economical polymers having relatively well-balanced physical properties. It has been widely known to incorporate one or more inorganic fillers into polyolefins to further improve their physical properties, such as stiffness and heat resistance.
However, their physical properties cannot be improved to a significant extent by the incorporation of such inorganic fillers. To the contrary, the incorporation of such inorganic fillers results in reduced impact resistance, thereby failing to provide molded articles having satisfactory physical properties.
As a method for solving these problems, it has been proposed to treat a filler with a coupler, or to blend a polymer containing a grafted polar monomer such as maleic anhydride, into a polyolefin (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 149452/1981, 45249/1983 and 64647/1984). However, the mere treatment of a filler with a coupler cannot bring about sufficient improvements in physical properties. On the other hand, blending a polymer containing a polar monomer such as maleic anhydride grafted thereon leads to a higher production cost and moreover cannot bring about sufficient improvements in physical properties. There has hence been a demand for the development of filler-containing polyolefin resin compositions of improved physical properties.